


Heart Like A Hole (Scuzzy Band Kids)

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cameos by - Freeform, F/F, Kjelle - Freeform, a non graphic mention of anxiety puke, gaze into the iris and my niche gen 1 ship gazes back, inigo - Freeform, nah, yarne - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: The concert lights are dimmed, so Lucina can finally see across the stage and into the crowd. It roars like a great wave, a pressure of noise pushing back against the speakers, chanting the lyrics even after Lucina’s voice fades out for a breath. It feels great. It feels inspiring. It feels like a punch in the chest.





	Heart Like A Hole (Scuzzy Band Kids)

The concert lights are dimmed, so Lucina can finally see across the stage and into the crowd. It roars like a great wave, a pressure of noise pushing back against the speakers, chanting the lyrics even after Lucina’s voice fades out for a breath. It feels great. It feels inspiring. It feels like a punch in the chest. 

The first big gig she’d done, she’d thrown up into the wastebasket half an hour before the show, while Gerome smoothed over her back in circles and Owain hung out of the dressing room door by one arm, asking the crew about pyrotechnics. Kjelle flipped him the bird, a bass amp on her shoulder. Cynthia’s parents had sent frosted cupcakes, which ended in the basket in pieces. It’s been a long time since then, but her stomach churns like clockwork, every time. 

Lucina’s mouth flicks up at the corners, and she tosses her head to shift her hair back from her face before she brings the microphone back up to her mouth again. She’s got the low, grainy voice of a soul singer, and it leans husky because she doesn’t always look after her throat like she should. It harmonizes with Cynthia, who rings out high notes like a bell before dipping low to add body to the weight of Lucina's emotion. 

They’ve worked hard to get this far, from singing covers of The Cranberries, Against Me and Rob Zombie, to writing and recording their own songs. Brady and Owain work in tandem to find rhymes and syncopation, the place that makes the heart skip. 

Their first studio album, _Toto, you’re a long way from home,_ was a sleeper hit that charted for months, never quite hitting number one. Lucina can’t say she didn’t expect it. It was missing something. 

Lucina missed something too. 

When the second album came out, it hit high and hard. Lucina, who had been out on tour promoting it for months, heard the single playing in the store while she picked up a multipack bag of burnin’ hot corn chips, a box of bandaids and a six pack of soda. 

The man behind the counter shifted in his seat; Lucina’s nails painted black, the monochrome detail of a pegasus nose and feathered wings poking out from under the cuff of her leather jacket. Her dark hair, natural, tipped with black at the ends to match the shape around her eyes. 

She placed the six pack on the counter, grabbed some gum from the stand and patted herself down for her wallet while Gerome brought over a bottle of vodka, a pack of disposable sponges and eight baby ruth bars. Owain and Cynthia came up from further in the store, collaborating on deforesting the pre-baked breadsticks from the baked goods aisle. 

None of them knew how to find a balanced meal at a grocery store. Lucina barely knew how to use a washing machine. And as the radio announced their single charted at number one, Lucina fumbled her debit card, dropping it with a clatter; relieved as Gerome reached across the counter to pay with his. 

“You’re not going to cause trouble, are you?” he asked. 

\--

Up on the stage, it’s where Lucina feels alive. When the world calls out and she knows what to shout back to them. Noise thumps in her ribs, vibrating through her bones, the curve of her spine. She fits the microphone back in the stand and goes across the stage to pick up her guitar, comforted by the feel of the strings against her fingertips. 

She starts off a simple riff as Cynthia calls out the next song. It’s her time in the spotlight now and Lucina loves it, glad to see her shine. She picks through notes with the sound the only thing that runs through her head, a goofy grin on her mouth that won’t go away. She’ll never try to hide it. 

Cynthia comes to the front of the stage, crooning into the microphone as Owain and Gerome take their time and switch places. It’s a gentle song, written with love for somebody who won’t hear it. Lucina wrote and rewrote it, finding the words that made the shadow of what she felt. 

Gerome lurks by the side of the stage, hidden on purpose behind the big bass speakers, the film crew struggling to capture his face as he turns down toward the neck of his guitar. Owain is gleaming with glycerine and glitter, shirt ripped open down to the navel. 

They fly through the set and Lucina takes the mic again, guitar under her hands and voice picked up through the mic and amplified through the speakers, her eyes half-closed as she sings. These are her friends. These are her family. 

\--

The band were always a thing. Parents knew parents, and so they grew up in each other’s company, clustering in the halls for safety, for warmth, for the price of shared pizza picked up after school. They spent most of their lunch breaks and spare time in the music room, out of trouble or hiding from trouble finding them. 

“You dumb scuzzy band kids!” Severa had shrieked, when it was revealed that Lucina had fell in second period and bled all over her jeans, rather than go home and miss band practise. She wrote a song for her, something soft and warm on an acoustic guitar. She’d been listening to too much Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks, too much of things that spread sad and wistful to beg and apologize. Severa wasn’t around to hear it, busy with applications for college and after-school tutoring classes. She was fifteen and ambitious; Lucina was fifteen, and scratched her own nail polish off when she got nervous. 

They rode out their teens, with Lucina’s dad checking in every six months or so, making sure their grades stayed high. Lucina slept through math, she spaced out through chemistry. Gerome folded his jacket to tuck under her face when she passed out at her desk. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t care - she stayed up late writing musical notation, wrestling with thesauruses, fitting words like pieces into a puzzle that only had a picture once it was complete. It was what mattered. She could read notes before letters, and she was good at it. It felt good to be good at something, satisfying to solve it. 

Her grades went down, then up again as Laurent and Severa spent lunch breaks breaking down concepts, working on helping her up. She zoned out and Severa snapped her fingers, bringing her back in.  
“You aren’t going to manage it like that,” she said, “Geez, Lucina.”  
Lucina put down her hands, chipped polish in black that hung at the back of her fingernails, and tried again to follow along. 

The group shifted and changed when it was time for college, and the lineup did too. Laurent peeled away to study Lit and Lang across the country in Themis. Nah took Chem, Mag, Bio and Physics, all the regular sciences, and came back with red marks on her hands and homemade fireworks for solstices. Inigo, of average grades, desperately used an 8-ball and a number generator to decide what classes to pick. Noire gave up her instrument entirely; she was trying to become a pharmacist. Lucina just worked on her songs, recording demos on a tape deck older than she was. Severa sat with her, jamming the Play and Record buttons down at the same time. 

\--

Owain comes to the front with a song of his own. He sparkles as he narrates, tuning the six-string into drop D and picking out notes, full of sweetness and laughter. He’s a natural showman, the light heart to Lucina’s measured seriousness. She takes her seat at the drum kit and begins the beat, thinking about friends she’s grown apart from. 

Lucina can drum like a metronome; she’s steady and measured and times it on a heartbeat. But her mind wanders, back to the music room, back to sitting outside in the drizzle, with Severa complaining about the weather. She wore Lucina’s jacket, with the hood pulled up. 

“I’m going to go to college,” Severa said, quiet like a temple whisper, “I want to get out of here.” 

Severa could sing and play anything, just like Lucina. She worked hard where Lucina just succeeded, with songs and melodies coming up as easy as a breath. Severa wanted a break, to be something more than the runner up to her best friend and the suffering daughter of a woman who played concert harp elegantly, dressed in starch and black to thousands attending the Ylissean orchestra. She wanted an escape. 

“Forever?” Lucina asked.  
Severa puffed out her cheeks, frustrated by the question.  
“I’m going because I want to try new things. There’s this place in Valm, a music college. I can do whatever I want. They have regular courses too. Cynthia’s mom said she’d sponsor me if my mom’s letter wasn’t enough.” 

Lucina nodded slowly. Her hand shifted over and latched on to the sleeve of her jacket. Severa looked down and back up, tugging out of the grip but lightly tapping the back of Lucina’s hand with her palm.  
“You’ll be okay,” Severa said, “Geez, It’s not like you don’t know what you’re doing without me.”

\--

Lucina joins in the chorus of Owain’s song. She’s not miked up to sing but she knows the words. For minutes she just forgets, gives over to the music. She’s always liked to lose herself in it, let it run through her body like lightning, earthing out past her hands. 

Severa grew up and left half way through their final year, transferring to a private academy to pack in some concentrated study before college. They threw one last party for her in the music room, covering the drum kits in paper string, leaving cups on the piano, a broken violin string that cut a notch in Brady’s eyebrow. It needed four stitches. Yarne fainted at the sight, spilling diet dollar-store brand orange soda over the floor. 

Severa’s absence left a gap in the sound. Lucina, attuned to her presence and to the noise of the band, felt it every time she tuned up. It was chance that Lucina had ever made it in - Owain’s raw throat and husky cough had revealed her voice; they needed somebody to drum while Gerome covered the melody. Her father’s acoustic guitars were redrawn in new meaning when she finally stepped up and plucked one perfect note that shone from a tiny amp. It was all chance, all convenient alignment from past to present. 

Lucina took her finals, signed on to her father’s record company, and dropped out before graduation with contracts to sign and the wide, open quiet of the studio to contend with. She unfolded childhood stories in her lyrics, buffing off the harsh angles like the manager wanted, adding the star single, the love song as her friends graduated properly and came back to meet her there. 

Being out of school was a haze with no order, no schedule, bad sleep and touring for promos. Lucina visited tattoo parlors in sleeveless band shirts, inking memories and holding Cynthia’s hand while it stung. From the moment Severa Tiamo announced she was going to college and she was leaving it all behind, Lucina had felt a gap open up behind her ribs that she didn’t know how to fill. 

Lucina Lowell and the Howls were going from strength to strength with every new single, hit their stride when they got that touch of leeway. Any emotional maturity the reviews picked out between between their debut _Toto_ and the follow up, _Scuzzy Band Kids,_ was Lucina trying to parse a hole that nobody else fell into. The band all missed her, sure - the warm body of her voice when Severa was coaxed to sing, the harp in the corner that went unused - but Lucina found ghosts whenever she sat down to work. 

\--

The curled-up piece of A4 on the back of the bass speaker says it’s the last song in the set. An old single, one the fans go wild for. Cynthia picks out the bass and the crowd roars back to hear it. Five albums down, ink down both of Lucina’s arms, and stadium concert tours. She finally knows how to do her own laundry. 

Lucina comes up to the microphone, taking it out of the stand to sing into, walking up to the front of the stage to kneel and touch outstretched hands that reach for the stage.  
“This is a song,” Lucina says, “For somebody I won’t forget.” 

She usually closes her eyes, bringing up the memory. This time she stands, gazing out into the audience as the sun sets over the stadium, the distant edges going hazy in the orange light. The crowd is in flux, moving like an ocean as people try to get to the stage, to reach for her feet, grasping at the cuffs of her jeans. The screens of mobile phones are lighting up in the half dark, recording her, and she pauses to wink at the crowd. 

Usually Lucina can’t see people, singular people, when it gets this dark. Adrenaline rush and the noise and the music blur her memories, mess with the words she can read on the signs. But the yellow glow shines off brilliant red hair, shoved forward to the edge of the stage. The stillness there, counterpoint to the sine wave of rockers bouncing in time to the beat. 

Lucina turns her head to look, letting Cynthia’s voice come up as her own dies away. Standing there, haloed in dying sun, white fur around her collar. Her nose is sharp; her slim brows tug up when Lucina’s voice fades down to quiet. 

Her hand reaches up with the rest, and Lucina kneels to take it, hold it tight. Without thinking, she hops off stage, coming up close as people pack in tight around them. There’s hands in Lucina’s pockets, touching and pulling at her shirt, fingertips and palms on her tattoos. Her microphone lowers from her mouth as she dips her chin, Severa’s name on her lips.

“Yeah,” Severa says. 

Lucina lifts the microphone again, but her throat locks. Severa reaches up, pulls her hand away, and curls her hand around Lucina’s arm, lifting up on her toes to kiss her. It’s neat, careful. Measured.

“You came back,” Lucina whispers. The crowd push in, but people around them shove away the mobile phones, step aside as security make a wall to hold them safe. It doesn’t matter anyway; Lucina’s world is just one person, hands back in her duffle coat pockets, scratching the back of one leg with the toe of her other foot. A camera has come down the central aisle of the stage, recording them meeting for the first time in a decade.

“Tried some things,” Severa says.

Up on stage, somebody starts a solo, electric reverberation that times from engineer-directed flashes of fireworks, shooting on every high note. Lucina snaps the power button off and stuffs the mic into the pocket of her jeans. She bends to take Severa’s chin in her hands, encouraging it up with the smallest touch of her fingers. She kisses her, eyes open as Severa closes hers. Her fingers curl around the angle of Lucina’s thumbs. 

Lucina kisses Severa, and behind her ribs she’s bursting with feeling. It’s whole. It’s overflowing.


End file.
